WSC 2014: Dec. 7-10, 2014 - Savannah, GA Westin Savannah Harbor Golf Resort & Spa

1. WSC 2014: Dec. 7-10, 2014 - Savannah, GA Westin Savannah Harbor Golf Resort & Spa Savannah International Trade & Convention Center Free ferry to the famous Savannah historic district every 30 minutes PGA Champions Tour Stop Talmadge Bridge Port of Savannah

2. Agenda • WSC 2014 Overview – Steve Buckley • General Chair Comments & Issues – Steve Buckley • Budget – Sanjay Jain • Program – John Miller • Publicity – Young-Jun Son (not here?) • Mobile App – Mike Kuhl 2

3. 2014 WSC Conference Committee 3

4. Keynote Speakers Plenary Keynote: Dr. Robert Roser The Higgs Boson and the Role of Simulation Scientific Computing Division Head Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) Military Keynote: Greg Tackett Director of the Ballistic Missile Defense Evaluation Directorate (BMDED) and the Ballistic Missile Defense System Operational Test Agency (BMDS OTA) U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Command Redstone Arsenal, Alabama 4

5. Titan Speakers Dr. John A. Swanson Founder, ANSYS Inc. • ANSYS is one of the most successful simulation companies in history. • Formed in 1970 to market engineering simulation solutions for aerospace, automotive, biomedical, manufacturing, and electronics clients. • Served as president, CEO, director, and advisor (current). Prof. Richard Fujimoto Georgia Institute of Technology • Professor and Chair of the Computational Science and Engineering Division of the College of Computing, Georgia Tech. • Research focus: discrete-event simulation programs on parallel and distributed computing platforms, including mobile systems, cluster computers, and supercomputers. • Led working group that was responsible for defining the time management services for the Department of Defense High Level Architecture (HLA) effort (IEEE Standard 1516). 5

6. Meeting Space Westin Savannah Harbor Golf Resort & Spa All meetings on Sunday will be held in the hotel Registration, Posters Staff Office Board Meeting Other Meetings Monday Registration until 9 am Plenary Session in Grand Ballroom A-F Tracks in Convention Center General Reception in Grand Ballroom A-F 6

7. Meeting SpaceWestin Savannah Harbor Golf Resort & Spa Speakers Breakfast (M-W) Other Meetings (S-W) 7

8. Meeting SpaceSavannah Int’l Trade & Convention Center Monday - Wednesday 18 breakouts Registration, Staff Office Exhibits, Internet Café, Food Breaks, Boxed Lunch Titan Speakers A/V storage 8

9. Draft Schedule • Sunday Dec 7 2014 (all meetings in hotel) • Morning • Board Meeting 8 am • Vendor Workshops 8 am • Registration • Afternoon • PhD Colloquium 12 pm • Simulation 101 1 pm • WSC ‘15 Kickoff Meeting 3 pm • Evening • PhD Poster Session • General Chair’s Reception 6:30 pm • TOMACS Editorial Board 7:30 pm • New Attendee Orientation 8 pm 9

10. Draft Schedule • Monday Dec 8 2014 • 7:00 to 9:00 Registration hotel • 7:00 to 8:30 Speakers Breakfast hotel • 8:30 to 10:00 Keynote Session w/Robert Roser hotel • 10:00 to 5:00 Registration conv center • 10:00 to 5:30 Exhibits Open conv center • 10:00 to 10:30 Break conv center • 10:30 to 12:00 Technical Session I conv center • 12:00 to 1:30 Boxed Lunch conv center • 12:20 to 1:20 Titan Speaker w/John Swanson conv center • 1:30 to 3:00 Technical Session II conv center • 3:00 to 3:30 Break conv center • 3:30 to 5:00 Technical Session III conv center • 5:15 to 5:45 Poster Madness conv center • 5:45 to 6:45 General Poster Session conv center • 6:30 to 8:30 General Reception hotel 10

11. Draft Schedule • Tuesday Dec 9 2014 • 7:00 to 8:30 Speakers Breakfast hotel • 7:00 to 5:00 Registration conv center • 8:30 to 10:00 Technical Session IV conv center • 9:00 to 5:30 Exhibits Open conv center • 10:00 to 10:30 Break conv center • 10:30 to 12:00 Technical Session V conv center • 12:00 to 1:30 Boxed Lunch conv center • 12:20 to 1:20 Titan Speaker w/Richard Fujimoto conv center • 1:30 to 3:00 Technical Session VI conv center • 3:00 to 3:30 Break conv center • 3:30 to 5:00 Technical Session VII conv center • 5:15 to 8:30 BoF and Organization Meetings hotel 11

12. Draft Schedule • Wednesday Dec 10 2014 • 7:00 to 8:30 Speakers Breakfast hotel • 8:30 to 10:00 Technical Session VIII conv center • 9:00 to 11:30 Exhibits Open conv center • 10:00 to 10:30 Break conv center • 10:30 to 12:00 Technical Session IX conv center • 11:30 to 2:30 Registration and Exhibits Move-out conv center • 12:00 to 5:00 Applied Probability Workshop hotel • 12:00 to 5:00 Simio Workshop hotel 12

13. General Chair Comments and Issues • Website: Successfully moved to INFORMS hosting. Special thanks to Sandy Owens. • Program: About the same number of papers submitted + invited as last year (~450). Special thanks to John Miller, who will provide details later. • Mobile App: Special thanks to Mike Kuhl for driving this effort. Suggested price from Omnipress is $4,900, but we are trying to cut some features out and reduce to $3,650. Need to find out if the WSC Foundation will help us out with funding. Need to determine who will do the tweeting of news. • Photographer: We are considering paying a photographer, tweeting photos during the conference, and posting on our website. This is new -- we need to determine how much and how it impacts our budget. • Port Tour: Being planned with Prof. Alexander Verbraeck (TU Delft). A walking tour will be difficult to organize because all attendees have to be background checked 24 hours in advance. A custom riverboat cruise is an alternative. I tried the cruise out last week – includes a lot of info on the port. We could just let the attendees sign up for their own riverboat cruises. 13

14. General Chair Comments and Issues (cont.) • IEEE MOU, ISBN Number, etc.: Jeff Joines is working with IEEE; this is being delayed by issues at IEEE. • Sponsorship: Last year the sponsorship totaled $7,500. So far this year we have $6,800. • Exhibitors: Last year we had 28 booths with about $36,000 revenue. So far this year we have 19 booths with $24,750 revenue. Budget is 25 booths with $33,000 revenue. • Golf Tournament: I met with hotel golf staff last week. Tournament is scheduled on Saturday Dec. 6th with tee times between 9:30 and 10:30 am. Sign-up information will be on the website soon. 32 individual tee times available (FCFS). 4-person teams will be formed and compete in scramble format. • Deceased Colleagues: Randy Sadowsky passed away and David Kelton volunteered to write a memorial for the Program and Opening Presentation. How will we find out about others who have passed away? 14

15. General Chair Comments and Issues – Vendor • Birds of a Feather: The vendors requested BoF meetings, with a focus on on application areas. They feel these will be of interest to industrial attendees. Cheryl thinks the General Reception will be too loud for this purpose. This could be scheduled on Monday and/or Tuesday starting at 5:15. There are rooms available for no extra charge. • Meeting Rooms for Vendor and Case Studies tracks: The vendors requested that these tracks be located near the Exhibit Hall. The closest rooms are 3 on the floor below the Exhibit Hall which hold 60 people each. Is that enough capacity? • Case Study papers published on the website archive: The vendors requested this. At present, only the abstracts are published because the case study papers are not reviewed. One option is to put a disclaimer on the website stating that these papers were not reviewed. Is there a liability issue? 15

16. General Chair Comments and Issues – Vendor (cont.) • Presentations in the Exhibit Area: The vendors requested a presentation area in the Exhibit Area, where vendors can sign up to give presentations on coffee breaks. We are unsure if this is feasible in 2014. • Exhibit-Only Conference Fee: The vendors requested an exhibit-only conference fee for industrial attendees. Makes sense, but the following issues need to be addressed: • The fee • Difficulty and cost of changing the registration process late in the game • A special color badge is needed to prevent these registrants from getting into anything but the Exhibit Area.  How to police this? Is there enough time? Is there additional cost? • Access to Vendor Tutorials and/or Vendor Meetings would add even more complexity • Industrial Mailing List: A mailing is proposed to industrial companies in the Savannah area to attract attendees. Sandy Owens is looking into distribution list pricing. The Vendor Group is looking into the content to be mailed. 16

17. WSC14 Budget June 2014 17

18. Updates since Dec. 2013 • WSC2013 final numbers • INFORMS contract • Hotel room block adjusted upward • Mobile app • Not included yet: • Costs due to vendor requests (e.g. mailing list) • Photographer 18

19. Hotel Summary • ^ - increased since last report • Room rates - $154 • $10 resort fee includes local calls, internet access, fitness center, self-parking, tennis, golf practice area • Additional $30 to $40 for golf view or river view without/ with balcony • All meeting space in the hotel and convention center is complimentary • Wireless access in Internet Café / Exhibit Area is complimentary • Minimum room block occupancy is 80% = $159K • F&B minimum at hotel and convention center is $53K+$15K = $68K 19

20. Registration (based on 690*) 20 * - Paid attendees, not including exhibitors

21. Exhibits • Cost estimates based on 25 booths • Booth projections (standard 11, corner 14) - Reserved so far (standard 9, corner 10) 21

22. Boxed Lunches • In Convention center • Box lunch cost $21+tax+gratuity = est. $27 • Attendees to pay $20* (less if more attendees than 690; propose to use additional revenue to reduce this amount first) • Assume that 50% of the attendees will buy the box lunches on the two days • * - change from $15 from December 2013 figures 22

23. Summary • 690 paid attendees with assumed student attendance of 30% • Need to manage F&B costs at 80% of actual costs in 2013 in Washington DC • F&B meets the minimums at hotel and convention center • Other numbers generally same as for 2013 • Costs managed to break-even at 690 attendees 23

24. WSC14 Program June 2014 24

25. Program 25

26. Program (cont.) 26

27. Program (cont.) 27

28. Program (cont.) 28

29. Program (cont.) 29

30. Program (cont.) 30

31. WSC14 Publicity June 2014 31

32. Publicity Plan Co-Chairs: Prof. Young-Jun Son, U. of Arizona Prof. Oliver Rose, U. of the Bundeswehr Munich Prof. Lee Loo Hay, National U. of Singapore Publicity Activities (Communication via Various Channels) • Postcard was distributed at and after WSC ’12 (thanks Steve!!) • Listservs that have been used • Listserv at Arkansas • IE faculty listserv; list for maritime logistics group; • Magazine and society web sites: OR/MS, ACM-SIGSIM, I-SIM, SCS, IEEE • Social media: Linkedin group (thanks Ann!!), facebook, WikiCFP • Face-to-face marketing (with postcard) at other conferences • European simulation events and other US events • Individuals have been helping distribute via their professional networks Publicity Activities (Collaboration with Vendor Marketing Team) • Conference call with vendor marketing team to brainstorm ideas (e.g. potential purchase of a list of contacts in the Savannah area) to increase industrial participants 32

33. Publicity Plan Co-Chairs: Prof. Young-Jun Son, U. of Arizona Prof. Oliver Rose, U. of the Bundeswehr Munich Prof. Lee Loo Hay, National U. of Singapore Schedule on Distributing E-mail Announcements • Call for paper: Late Jan. or early Feb., 2014 => completed • Call for paper deadline reminder: early March 2014 => completed • Call for paper extension: Deadline reminder/extension from April 1 to April 15 (confirmation with John is needed): Late March 2014 => completed • Call for industrial case studies (due by mid August): May 8 => completed • Call for industrial case studies (reminder) and PhD/poster presentation (due by August 18): June 2014 => to be sent in the week of June 23 • On-line registration availability: June or July 2014 • Deadline extension for industrial case studies/PhD/poster presentation (from mid August to end of August): mid August • Early registration reminder: early October • Last week to register at early registration rate – late October • On-line prelim program availability – October or November 2014 33

34. WSC14 Mobile App Michael Kuhl 34

35. Tasks/Timeline • Meet with Omnipress to determine data/information requirements/formats (Complete) • Contract with Omnipress for App (In progress) • Finalize App Artwork (July 1) • Meet with Linklings to extract data for App from Paper Management System (July 1) • Submit Apple/Google Request for App (July 10) • Approval from Apple/Google (Mid – Late August) • Provide initial data to Omnipress (August 15) • Release App (September 1) • Update App periodically, • Program (October 1) • Program Changes (~ every 2 weeks as needed) 35

36. Artwork • Designed by INFORMS • Specifications given by Omnipress to meet Apple/Google standards 36

37. WSC App Icon 37

38. WSC App Splash Screen 38